Maheen (she/her) has dedicated her life to creating a world where girls of color are safe and free. She has almost twenty years of experience supporting youth and families impacted by interpersonal and state violence, and making way for those traditionally marginalized from formal sites of power to lead efforts to advance racial and gender justice. In the various roles she has held, she has always grounded her work in the wisdom of women and girls of color who have survived the carceral system, sexual exploitation, and abuse.
Previously, Maheen served as Program Officer at the NoVo Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s work to end commercial sexual exploitation and led the development of The Life Story Grants, a $10 million commitment to support projects that close sex trade on-ramps, and open exit-ramps for survivors. Prior to NoVo, she was a staff attorney at a human rights organization dedicated to ending gender-based violence impacting marginalized girls and young women, where she advocated for the successful passage of numerous laws and policies at the federal, state, and local levels that protect the rights of girls in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Maheen has co-authored several reports, including The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: A Girls’ Story, and Beyond the Walls: A Look at Girls in D.C.’s Juvenile Justice System. She is an alum of the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, the Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellowship, and the National Juvenile Justice Network Youth Justice Leadership Institute, and holds both a bachelor’s degree in International Politics and a law degree from Georgetown University. Maheen is a first generation Pakistani-American who was raised mostly in the Bay Area of California, on the traditional territory of the Ohlone people.